


Finding Lost Conviviality

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Ginger Karkat, Humanstuck, M/M, Mild Gore, virusstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:03:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after discovering and, for the most part, quitting the internet game, Sburb, many of the kids (including humanised trolls) were wiped out in the zombie Outbreak. Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas, however, managed to survive the undead apocalypse. Both, being under the assumption that all of their former companions are long dead, have resigned themselves to lives of solitude. When paths cross, however, they just might begin to re-evaluate their former solitary scenarios.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Lost Conviviality

**Author's Note:**

> **Feedback is welcome.** This planned piece is a bit of dabbling in the survival and drama genres. That being said, I _did_ mention drama; and, as you may have already seen, that means emotion. I'll be experimenting with a good deal of emotional manipulation and whatnot through this work. So, **if you're looking for a nice, happy read, I respectfully suggest you read something else**. Try some of my other crappy writing, or read someone else's much better writing! Because this story is going to be emotional as hell. I will, however, have some happy moments and whatnot. So it won't be all bad!
> 
> [As a side note... Sweet shit! I'm doing regular DaveKat. This is new and different!]

His name was Dave Strider.

You first met him six years ago, while playing an internet-based MMORPG known as Sburb. Despite a good deal of banter and insulting, you and him eventually befriended one another. Or, at least, you came to tolerate one another.

He was–when you first reunited with him, following the Outbreak–nineteen. You, at the time, were eighteen. At the time, he was alone; and, you were, too.

Through a rip on his right sleeve, you could see bloodstained bandages. His hair was coated in a layer of grease and dirt, his face smeared with dust and ash. The shades he so highly prized were scratched and cracked, sitting lopsidedly on the bridge of a crooked nose.

Upon seeing you, he whipped out the rifle strapped to his back. He pointed the end of its makeshift bayonet and, subsequently, the business end of the firearm at you. “Take one more step and I’ll blow your head clean off,” he said plainly, expressionlessly.

He, unlike you, hadn’t changed much in the emotional and mental department. You realised that then…

“Okay! Okay! God damn! I’ll back off, okay? Save your fucking bullets for something worthwhile, you dumb fucker!” you grumbled, raising your hands into the air.

“Karkat…?” hesitated Dave as he lifted his sunglasses to get a better look. He looked at you, squinting against the bright midday sun

“No, I’m the motherfucking Easter Bunny, you shit-headed idiot!”

“I thought you were dead,” he’d responded in his monotonous, Texas-accented voice. For a moment, he stood in the same place, perched strategically at the top of a slight incline. After that moment, though, it all seemed to register with him, and he began to carefully approach you.

You noticed that, as he wandered towards you, he had gained a bit of height. 

He’d also acquired a heavy limp. He leaned most of his weight on his right leg and, using his bayoneted rifle as a support, pulled his apparently weaker left leg forward. When he was better within your view, you also noted that his left foot and ankle seemed to hang in a mostly limp position, the toes of said foot dragging behind with each advancing step.

The once clean-shaven, early adolescent fact you’d once familiarised yourself with had grown into that of a young adult, complete with rough, uneven stubble. Scars of various types and ages covered the little skin he had exposed–his face, neck, and a bit of his left forearm.

In general, you could tell that he, much like you, had undergone some dramatic _physical_ changes. His general demeanour, however, was still the same…

“Well, obviously I’m not fucking dead yet,” you responded once he was closer to you–about two and a half feet, to be exact. “And you, quite obviously and, possibly unfortunately, aren’t deceased as of yet, either. Congrats.”

One of his odd half-smiles flashed across his usually inert features as he raised an inquisitorial brow. “Congrats on what? Not being dead yet, while everyone else I know is dead?”

Despite the dry, emotionless delivery of his words, you couldn’t help but feel a bit of shocked pain in response to them. Without really noticing that you were even doing so, you put your hand into your pocket and toyed with a blue lens–the only part of Sollux you’d been able to safely recover before reluctantly continuing on your quest for survival–residing in your pocket. “Okay… You have a fucking point… I guess it’s not really all that stupendous of an achievement, after all…”

“Oh, I was just kind of pointing it out,” Dave mumbled. His hand reached into one of the many pouches on his person and, after searching a bit, pulled forth a pair of broken rectangular glasses. “And, I guess since I’ve already shat all over your probably rainy mood… I think you were on pretty good terms with John, too, right?”

At that moment, you felt your heart figuratively drop into your stomach. “John’s…?” you muttered, forcing yourself to keep your composure as you stared at the familiar spectacles.

“Happened a few days ago…” The first hint of emotion–a small frown–appeared on Dave’s face as he continued, “Got bitten by one of those creepy ass little shits. I waited until he was pretty much gone before I did it… Just kind of…” He paused, turned his gaze towards the ground. “…Yeah… He’s gone…”

You nodded solemnly and pulled out the single blue lens you’d been unconsciously toying with. “Well… With Sollux, I guess that makes two dead fuckers…”

To your surprise, Dave chuckled a bit at the comment. “I’m sure John’d’ve loved you calling him a ‘fucker’.”

“I did it all the time, anyways, so…”

“We might as well stick together. We’re both gonna’ die eventually,” he commented casually, mercifully interrupting the flow of the conversation.

You looked up at him, slightly shocked to have heard such a logical statement from the guy who once tried to get you to draw dicks all over your homework. “Yeah… We might as well fucking stay together…”

Obviously being in agreement with this idea (and being the one to think of mentioning it), Dave took you back to his camp. It was, in all actuality, a rather shitty little two-storey house. The floor was covered with dust, which, with the way Dave stumbled around, seemed to perpetually fly in sneeze-inducing clouds. The house itself, being made of sturdy brick, provided quite a bit of protection; but, it also happened to have a flimsy wooden door. To solve this problem, Dave had merely nailed a second door–made of equally crappy scrap wood–behind the first. The windows had been long since boarded over and, inside, it was stuffier than a windowless room filled with die-hard conservatives. (On the other hand, it was only really missing the die-hard conservatives. It qualified for the former half of the comparison.)

As you wandered around the house, you were surprised to find that Dave had made his own alterations–added his own personal touch to things. A few pictures–mainly of John and the man you recognised to have been Dave’s caretaker and brother–were tacked to the wall. By the looks of it, he’d also managed to restore an old parlour piano–albeit a bit crudely–to working condition.

“How fucking long have you actually been enjoying the luxuries of this dusty-as-hell crap shack!?” you mumbled curiously.

He, in reply, looked up at you and chewed his lip for a second or so. “Maybe about a year and a half? Year? I don’t know. I’m not keeping track of time when I’m trying to keep myself from dying.”

To his reply, you nodded. Then, before you could really think of it, the question slipped out. “So… John…?”

Dave quickly cut you off. For the first time that you, personally, knew of, you heard his voice shaking a bit. “He’s gone, okay? Let’s just move on and not think about it. If I could bring him back, I sure as hell would. But I can’t, okay?” Before he continued, you heard him taking a deep breath. “He’s in the back yard. I didn’t have any other place to put him… I’m sure he’d understand… Hell, he'd probably be making shitty jokes about it.”

Out of sheer morbid curiosity, you peered through a crack in one of the rear-facing windows; and, sure enough, you saw him. Or, rather, you saw what remained of him. You saw a creature–its dead, pale skin having its own ghostly light blue tint–bearing several similarities to John; it wore his shirt, had the same stupid buck teeth as him. But, as far as you’re concerned, it wasn’t John. It, with its mostly destroyed face and slowly rotting form, was not–couldn’t have been–the jovial, optimistic, bespectacled teenager you’d come to know and, quite honestly, care about…

“Yeah…” It was all you could manage to mutter in reply to his comment. You regretted looking, regretted seeing what your curiosity had driven you to gaze at. You turned around, forcing down a rising lump in your throat as you surreptitiously buries the memory of what you’d seen in the darkest depths of you mind.

“Don’t let it get you down, dude.” The sound of Dave’s voice drew your attention away from the troubling scene, and towards him. “John was John at the very end, you know. Cracked a brave grin and threw out a corny, morbid joke before I did him in. Yeah, sure, it was kinda’ sad to lose him, but I’m sure he wouldn’t want us to be sitting here and having a sob party over it.”

You responded to the odd, albeit thoughtful, commentary with a nod. “I guess you’re right…”

“I’m Dave fucking Strider, I’m always right,” Dave retorted with a grin. He lifted his glasses enough for you to see him wink, then dropped them back into place. “Now, why don’t you go and get some sleep while I hold up fort? You need some sleep. I mean… you look fucking horrible. Well… Worse than you usually do.”

His words drew an increasingly elusive smile to your face, reminded you of better times. “You sure you’re up for it? You’ll probably forget what the fuck you’re even doing halfway through the watch.”

Your counter to his comment brought out one of his odd half-grins. “Yeah, dude. Go on ahead and sleep a bit. You’re starting to look like a zombie yourself, you know.”

You smirked and, with a nod, wandered over to the cots set up on the living room floor. As you had spread yourself out into a comfortable position, you anticipated only a short nap. Unsurprisingly, this plan failed. In fact, you quickly fell into one of the most peaceful slumbers you’d had in quite a while, and—

* * *

“Dude, wake the fuck up!”

A shocked yelp escaped you as you awoke to the sensation of Dave shaking your shoulder. You proceeded to cast a slightly annoyed glare at him, prior to roughly snapping back, “What!?”

“'What!?' You’ve been fucking asleep for the past nine hours. You only need eight goddamn hours!” He let forth a frustrated sigh. “We have to go. I just got word of an oncoming wave. I’ve gathered up all my unimportant sentimental shit and some bare essentials; and, while I hate to leave this place behind, it’s probably time to get moving, anyhow.”

You replied to his words with a frown and–after casting a sceptical gaze out the window and seeing, through the cracks in the boards, a waxing crescent moon–confirmed, at the very least, one half of his statement. Another inquisitorial glance fell upon the sight of a well-used bag, filled to its maximum capacity, which confirmed the other half of his story. But, there was sill one piece missing. “How the fucking hell did you even acquire the knowledge of an oncoming throng of undead beings!?” you sputtered.

“It’s this magical thing called radio. You put this little metal wire up in the air and move it around until you hear people talking! Oh my god, technology’s so damned amazing!” he responded sarcastically. “Now, why don’t you shut up and get moving? They’re supposed to arrive around here in an hour.”

You nodded and, with some understandably reluctance, left the comfort of the cot to follow Dave.

* * *

In the following hours, you and Dave managed to trek a considerable distance. It could have been five hours; it could have been six. You hadn’t a clue how long you’d been travelling. All you knew is that, somehow, you managed to find a new shelter.

It was a bit like the last–made of brick, with boarded-up windows and a dust-covered interior. Unlike the last, it came complete with a sturdy oak door. Before settling in, you’d checked it over, from top to bottom, and found no trace of anything potentially deadly. Then, you returned to report your findings.

Dave quickly accepted the report, made his way inside–to a spot at which he wouldn’t interfere with the door’s operation–and, before you could say any words of objection, he dropped his bag on the ground. Using the bag as a lumpy pillow, he then proceeded to rapidly fall asleep; while you quickly took over the lookout position.


End file.
